Percept Picture Company’s Hindi film 8x10 Tasveerand Paramount Pictures’ Fast & Furious 4, both released in India today (April 3), might be the last two films to open before India’s United Producers Forum begins its strike against multiplex owners from April 4.

After a disappointing 2008, Indian distributors and exhibitors have high hopes for 2009. Last year began weakly, went on to have a few upswings thanks to some unexpected small-budget successes, and finished with two December hits. Take into account the cost of producing, marketing and releasing the films, however, and it appears the industry ended the year in the red.

Following news that the Walt Disney Co is taking a majority stake in India's UTV Software Communications, the two companies have announced that subsidiary UTV Motion Pictures will now exclusively handle sales and distribution of all Disney releases in India.

The global economic slowdown has begun to impact the Indian film business, but producers and filmmakers attending the Film Bazaar projects market in Goa (Nov 26-29), say they expect this to have positive as well as obvious negative effects.

The 39th edition of the International Film Festival of India (Iffi) runs November 22 -December 2 in the seaside town of Goa. Around 5,000 delegates from India and abroad are expected to attend. Some 15 films will compete for the Golden Peacock in the World Cinema section. All are titles from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region and include Marie Miyayama's The Red Spot, Sergei Dvortsevoy's Tulpan and Ekachai Uekrongtham's The Coffin.

When the Indian film industry selected Hindi film Stars On Earth (Taare Zameen Par) as its official entry for best foreign film for this year's Academy Awards, it was a triple celebration for Aamir Khan.

After announcing its intention to launch a 24-hour world cinema channel earlier this year, NDTV Lumiere has given the channel a soft launch on October 10 and is gearing up for the official launch in late November or early December 2008.

Fox Star Studios, the pan-Asian joint venture between Twentieth Century Fox and regional broadcaster Star, has struck a two-picture deal with producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah whose credits include Namastey London and Singh is Kinng.

India's Big Music & Home Entertainment, owned by Reliance ADAG group, has entered into a video licensing deal with Paramount Home Entertainment for library titles from Paramount and DreamWorks in India and Sri Lanka.

Following the release of family comedy Air Buddies and romantic drama Feast Of Love, India's Moser Baer is extending its theatrical distribution plans by releasing psychological thriller Righteous Kill, starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, in India this week.

Indian production and distribution company, Percept Picture Company (PPC), has signed a $21m (Rs900m) deal with Mirah Entertainment to jointly produce and distribute films in Hindi, English and regional languages.

India's BIG Music & Home Entertainment, part of Reliance BIG Entertainment, has announced that it has been appointed by Warner Home Video as the exclusive licensee for the release of its catalogue in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Mumbai-based Adlabs Cinemas has commissioned India's leading research agency, IMRB International, to carry out research that will probe the Indian cinema audience on parameters such as advertising exposure, cinema habits and exposure to media.

UTV Motion Pictures has announced that it has entered the list of top 20 film distributors in North America in the first half of 2008, by becoming the first Indian film studio to cross the $5m revenue mark.

India's Palador Pictures is planning to release Tokyo Sonata by Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa in October this year. Palador picked up theaward-winning titlefrom Fortissimo Films at this year's Cannes.

UTV Motion Pictures release Kismat Konnection grossed $6.3m (Rs270m) worldwide on its opening weekend (July 18-20), including $4.9m (Rs208m) in India, which makes it the second biggest opener of the year in its home territory.

Indian distributor Percept Picture Company (PPC), which made history earlier this year by acquiring Indian rights to Pakistani film In The Name Of God (Khuda Kay Liye), is set to also release US-Pakistani co-production Ramchand Pakistani in India.

Now the Indian film industry is making more noise on the world stage, its film festivals are also starting to attract a more international crowd. One of the best known outside India is Mumbai-based Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian & Arab Cinema, which this year takes place July 10-20 in Delhi.

In yet another announcement of an affiliation, Reliance Big Entertainment's (RBE) Big Pictures has joined hands with Indian producer Vashu Bhagnani's Puja Films for a five-picture slate to be completed over the next two years.

Just one week after news broke that Anil Ambani's Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) is in talks to invest in DreamWorks, the Indian company has announced a joint venture with India's first family of Hindi cinema, the Bachchans.

The Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival has announced the juries for this year's tenth anniversary edition (July 10-20), which will feature four competition sections: Asian & Arab, Indian, First Features and In-tolerance.

Yash Raj Films' Chak De India and Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om are the big winners at this year's International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards in the technical categories. Both films star Shah Rukh Khan.

India's Eros International seems to be on a roll. After a successful 2007 with hits such as Namastey London, Partner, Heyy Babyy and Om Shanti Om, Eros has announced that it plans to release 35 films in 2008.

Indian exhibitor Pyramid Saimira is set to produce 52 films this year, via its production label Pyramid Saimira Production International, including ten Tamil-language films with an investment of $10m (Rs400m).

Frozen, directed by Shivaji Chandrabhushan, was awarded with the special prize of the jury at this year's MAMI International Film Festival in Mumbai, which closed March 13 with a screening of Naomi Kawase's The Mourning Forest.

India's Eros International has released Hindi comedy Heyy Babyy on Blu-ray, marking the first global release of a Bollywood film on the format. The film is the first of a slate of planned Blu-ray releases by Eros.

A high-powered delegation of French producers will be visiting India later this week for the 'Rendezvous With French Cinema' which aims to expand the audience for French film in a market that is dominated by local product.

After much speculation on who would star in his next project, sci-fi feature Robot, Indian director Shankar has confirmed that he is reuniting with the Tamil-language film industry's biggest star, Rajnikanth.

Romanian director Christian Mungiu's Cannes Palmes d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days will be the opening film of this year's International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, with Mungiu himself expected to attend.

Leading Bollywood studio Yash Raj Films has signed licensing deals with two VoD-enabled web-sites - www.watchindia.tv and www.tinselvision.com - which will offer digital downloads of its back catalogue and more recent films.

Indian distribution and exhibition company PVR Ltd, through its wholly-owned subsidiary PVR Pictures, plans to invest $25.2m (Rs1bn) in film production and expand its slate to three to four films in the current financial year.

Eros International has taken international rights to Krazzy 4 from Rakesh Roshan's Film Kraft Productions. The project is currently shooting.Jaideep Sen will direct the comedy with a social message. ...

In yet another strategic expansion, India 's leading integrated media company Eros International is working with international visual effects expert Charles Darby to start a new venture called EyeQube Studios Private Ltd.

After establishing movie production brand Spotboy in May this year, UTV Motion Pictures has unveiled a slate of three Hindi films under the new division, to be directed by Shyam Benegal, Anurag Kashyap and debut director Raj Kumar Gupta.

After announcing a slate of film deals and co-productions, Eros International, the integrated media company in the Indian entertainment sector, is now expanding its library of Hollywood films and added 146 English titles to its catalogue. This list includes titles like Rambo 4, Rush Hour 3, Lonely Hearts, The Accidental Husband, Incubus and others.

India has selected Eklavya - The Royal Guard as its official entry to the best foreign-language film category of the Oscars, marking the second time that a film from director Vidhu Vinod Chopra has been submitted.

India's National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) is launching a co-production market for Indian projects to take place during the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa from November 24-26.

Mumbai-based UTV Motion Pictures (UTVM) is making a foray into Telugu-language films by signing Telugu star Mahesh Babu, one of the most bankable stars in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, for two movies.

After Sholay Media and Entertainment won its court case against Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, restricting him from using the title or names of characters in his alleged remake of the cult classic, the owner of the rights to Sholay has now entered into a deal with Pritish Nandy Communications to remake the film.

India's Eros International has acquired the overseas distribution rights to two forthcoming films from local production house T-Series - Ram Gopal Varma's Darling and Bhool Bhulaiyaa, directed by Priyadarshan.

Indian producer-distributor UTV Motion Pictures has signed a DVD on-demand deal with US-based TitleMatch Entertainment Group for distribution of its library titles via retailers and e-tailers in North America.

India's National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), in collaboration with the Directorate of Film Festivals, will conduct a script development workshop from Nov 18-24 in Goa during the International Film Festival of India.

The dispute between Indian companies UTV Motion Pictures and Palador, reported in May, has been amicably settled. After releasing two films (City of God and 13 Tzameti) under the UTV-Palador brand, the Indian motion picture company terminated all business relations with Palador for its world cinema business citing 'material breach of terms of agreement by Palador'.

After losing out on opening weekend collections for the The Simpsons Movie in India , local distributor Warner Bros reached an amicable settlement with the Multiplex Owners Association leading to the film being back on regular shows from today (Aug 7).

Indian media conglomerate UTV today announced a co-production deal for the entire slate of productions to be launched by Anupam Kher and Satish Kaushik, under their banner Karol Bagh Film and Entertainment.

India 's Century Communications Ltd (CCL) and producer Deepak Nayar have launched an internet-based film competition portal, www.filmaka.in, designed by established filmmakers to discover emerging talent in India.

Pixion, the post-production arm of Century Communication Limited (CCL), has recruited specialist David Crawford to lead its VFX team in India. Crawford is associated with Hollywood blockbusters such as Spiderman, Titanic, Mission Impossible 2, XXX, and Vanilla Sky.Pixion has recently seen an exponential growth and is working on around 40 films under various banners to be released in ...

After releasing only two films (City Of God and 13 Tzameti) under the UTV-Palador brand, India 's UTV has terminated all business relations with Palador for its world cinema business with immediate effect.

Indian media and entertainment company Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC) has signed a five-picture deal with Florida-based animation house Motion Pixel Corporation (MPC) and its animation studio Estudio Flex in Costa Rica.

One of the more surprising revelations made by the Indian businessman and entrepreneur Raaja Kanwar, the man pioneering digital cinema and exhibition in the territory, is that he is not "a fan of Hindi movies".

Mumbai-based entertainment giant UTV plans to bring world cinema to the Indian market through a joint venture with local distributor Palador Pictures, UTV Palador, which encompasses arthouse theatres, a DVD label and a movie channel.

Indian entertainment conglomerate UTV and filmmaker Rakeysh Mehra's company Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Productions (ROMP),which teamed up for last year's hit film Rang De Basanti, have reunited. Together they will invest $64.9m (Rs2.8bn)in four films to be produced over three years.

The 9th edition of the International Film Festival of Mumbai (IFFM) organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) will open with Zhang Yimou's The Curse of the Golden Flower on March 8.The week-long festival, presented by Adlabs, will close on March 15 with Mira Nair's The Namesake.

Distributor BR Films have scheduled the Indian release of Deepa Mehta's Oscar nominated Water for March 9. Ravi Chopra of BR Films confirmed that the company would be releasing up to 100 prints nationally with a focus on multiplexes.

Rahul Dholakia's controversial drama Parzania has been unofficially banned in the state of Gujarat, where cinema owners have opted not to screen the film for fear of a political backlash from the ruling party.

After being banned for 20 months, controversial docu-drama Black Friday, based on the 1993 bombings in Mumbai, is being released in India and overseas this Friday. Adlabs Films acquired the worldwide distribution rights and is releasing it on 100 screens in India, 10 in the USA and 3 in South Africa.

Indian box office revenues increased by 40% last year in what may prove to be a landmark year.Films like Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, Krrish, Kabie Alvida Na Kehna, Phir Hera Pheri, Lage Raho Munnabhai and Dhoom 2 were the frontrunners. The cops-and-robbers action chase film, Dhoom 2, led the pack taking $37m (Rs 1.65bn). Its closest contender was

Former UTV executive TanujGarg has been appointed head of UK & Ireland for the recently-launched Studio 18, owned byleading Indian news broadcaster Network 18, which has ambitious plans for internationaldistribution and co-production.

Rakeysh Mehra's Rang De Basanti has been selected by the Film Federation Of India asIndia's official entry to the foreign language category of the Academy Awards.A jury member said they voted on Mehra's film about youthawakening because "we felt that Rang De Basanti is more Indian and ...

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